OUR WORK
A Call for Strategic Funding
Building on AfriLingual co-op success, LJC’s current campaign goal is to secure additional funding to support Asian American Federation (AAF), MASA NY, and The New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) organizations in building their language services co-op and form the development of the bank. Our proposal for worker-owned cooperatives will stimulate local economies, and enhance overall accessibility of public services.
Create a Community Interpreter Bank
The Community Interpreter Bank (CIB) model has been used successfully since 2007 in the District of Columbia to expand language access and increase the supply of trained, vetted immigration legal interpreters. We propose that the City provide funding to a community-based nonprofit organization to set up a Community Legal Interpreter Bank and recruit, train, and dispatch legal interpreters. City-funded immigration legal service providers will then request interpreters from the CIB for legal services where they lack language capacity, and receive these services free of charge, up to a set number of hours, from the CIB.
Develop language services worker-owned cooperatives in immigrant communities.
New York City has recognized the importance of worker-owned cooperatives as a way to create community-controlled businesses, particularly in immigrant communities that may face barriers to traditional business ownership. There is tremendous potential for immigrant community organizations to develop language services worker co-ops that provide services such as interpretation, translation, and ESOL instruction.
Beyond nonprofit immigration legal services, language services worker co-ops could eventually help meet demand for professional, high-quality language services in the courts, education, health care, and the private sector, while providing skilled employment and business ownership opportunities to immigrant communities.
We celebrate the launch of Afrilingual, the first African language worker cooperative, and look to the City to fund immigrant community-based organizations to develop and launch one for Asian LLDs and one for indigenous Latin American LLDs.
